Gyro Gearloose

1. Students are asked to find 5 different items from the household that will be used for the task They have 5 minutes to do so.
2. The teacher picks an object from a bag they have created of about 5 different random objects from the household and asks a student to do the same. Then demonstrates how to invent a ‘new thing’ based on the chosen object and one of the students’ objects.
3. The teacher gives each student a number based on how many students there are in the class. The teacher then shouts out random numbers (e.g., numbers 5 and 13). The students with this number show their item to the rest of the class on the camera. They then generate ideas from that. The teachers keep choosing numbers for new objects to be shown to continue the generation of ideas.
4. One alternative is to let the students do this activity in pairs in breakout rooms. The students are asked to pair up with someone who has the same shoe size as them. Students write their shoe size in the chat. The students are asked to look at the things they collected from the bag. Within 3 mins, the pairs must develop ideas for the challenge; these ideas must be a combination of their two items.
5. The students then look at the two items they collected from the bag. The pairs work
together and invent ‘new things’ which are a combination of the two items they collected from the bag. They keep going taking new items from the bag when they do not get any more ideas. The teacher set the time limit.
6. The students note down the ideas that emerged during the exercise – 1 idea per virtual post-it note.
7. The students share their ideas with the rest of the class. The teacher may also discuss how the application of a concrete object can generate some new ideas regarding the challenge.